Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
These words said many years ago by Theodore Roosevelt sprung to my mind as I got the news yesterday that once again all the pwhy children had passed their examinations and been promoted to the next class.
I felt myself swell with pride. They had done it again these incredible kids that every one had given up on: their parents, their school teachers and society itself. Many had come to us as failures. In some cases we had to fight with parents wanting them to stop their studies. In other cases they has been branded as useless and gone cases. But for us every child can succeed, you only have to discover the right way.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. My kids did just that! They do not have much. In some cases their homes are dark hovels, in others noisy rooms with no place to study. Our classes or what goes by that name are anything between a hot cramped room, a reclaimed garbage dump, a inclement terrace. Yet they are all infused with a spirit no one can beat. The determination of the children, the perseverance of the teachers and the passion of pwhy make a heady cocktail that can only spell success.
But the euphoria was short lived. Pwhy is a tiny island of hope in a terrifying sea where children get the rawest of deals. Not a day goes by without some news item that proves this point. Yesterday a child gets his face scarred for eating a biscuit, a class VIII student hangs himself because his results are not up to the mark. Politicians proffer empty words while the killer of a young girl remain faceless. A child lies unconscious after being being thrashed by his school principal. And the list goes on…
Abuse against children continues in spite of the media blitz, of the empty reassurance of politicians and administrators, in spite of the endless laws aimed at protecting them. When will all this end? Have we all lost our conscience and heart? Have we as civil society abdicated our right to be?
Will someone answer.
